Real-time PCR: housekeeping genes in the INS-1E beta-cell line.

Investigation of gene expression is a developing area with several methods available. One method is quantitative PCR. A major pitfall in quantitative PCR is the normalisation procedure of the gene expression. Many experiments include a housekeeping gene, some use RNA concentration, and others use a geometric mean of several internal, stably expressed genes. This study demonstrates that real-time-PCR results differ with varying housekeeping genes and analysis protocols when applied to insulin-secreting INS-1E cells derived from the pancreas and stimulated by DEDTC (diethyldithiocarbamate, a zinc chelator) and GLP-1.